World Championship model boat race coming to Vancouver

Model hydroplane race at Klineline Pond to benefit Parks Foundation

VANCOUVER, Wash. – A two-year old national championship event is growing up and moving out this fall.

After back-to-back years as host of the American Power Boat Association National Championship [for 1/10-scale unlimited hydroplanes] at Woodland’s Horseshoe Lake Park, Electric Radio Controlled Unlimite ds [ERCU] is moving its season-ending event to Vancouver.

The event will be a fundraiser for the Parks Foundation of Clark County.

“It’s been a dream of mine to bring a world-class event like this to Vancouver since I started racing model boats nearly 10 years ago,” said ERCU member Nelson Holmberg, a native of Vancouver. “To make it an event that benefits the Parks Foundation makes it even a bigger deal to me.”

On Saturday, October 11, 2008, ERCU will host the Cascade Cup/NAMBA World Championship, which is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m., at Salmon Creek Park [Klineline Pond]. The race is sanctioned and insured by the North American Model Boat Association [NAMBA], and put together by ERCU. Holmberg is the event’s coordinator.

Each racer participating in the event will run a unique boat, a 1/10-scale model of an actual unlimited hydroplane that has raced at some point in the real sport’s history. The three-foot-long models are capable of speeds approaching 55 miles per hour, powered by lithium polymer batteries that energize brushless electric motors. These high-performance models are, for the most part, built of carbon fiber, fiberglass and other composite materials, and range from $3,000-$6,000 in value.

In “real life”, unlimited hydroplanes are typically 30 feet long and reach straightaway speeds of 200 mph these days, but the boats of today are far superior in technological advances to the ones that brought hydroplane racing to the Pacific Northwest. In 1950, the Slo-Mo-Shun IV went to Detroit and won the Gold Cup with a radical new “three-point” design that meant only three points of the hull – including one blade of the three-blade propeller – actually touched the water while it was racing.

“The boats that will participate in this event are really no different than the real thing,” Holmberg said. “While they’re smaller-scale versions of the real thing, these models are truly hydroplanes in their own right. The drivers, too, are skilled at radio control, boat building and maintenance.”

Several of the real unlimited hydroplanes – most of which are based in and around Seattle – pass through Vancouver on I-5 or I-205 every year, before and after their annual late September race in San Diego. They’ve raced in Vancouver just one time, though – in August of 1979 when the Miss Budweiser, Atlas Van Lines and Squire Shop hydroplanes staged an exhibition event on the Columbia River at Marine Park.

“My dad, who grew up close to the hydroplanes in Seattle, took me to the exhibition at Marine Park and said I would love the experience,” said Holmberg, who has attended real boat races in Tri-Cities and Seattle since 1980 as a result of that first contact. “Dad was right. The first time I heard one of the engines fire up, I was hooked. Racing these models is the closest I’ll ever come to racing an unlimited hydroplane, and I’m completely satisfied with that.”

Clark County residents including Mick Shutt [Vancouver], Jesse Shehan [Washougal], John Earnest [Battle Ground], and Holmberg [Vancouver], as well as several Portland-area residents, are members of ERCU, and will represent the area at the world championship event, and figure to make a push for the race win. Clark County’s Earnest, Shutt, Shehan and Holmberg combined account for nearly 85 years of model hydroplane racing experience.

ERCU came into existence on January 24, 2003 as a fast electric 1/10-scale unlimited club, and was born with direct affiliation to Radio Controlled Unlimiteds [RCU], which, with three and a half decades of history, is the granddaddy of all scale racing clubs in the nation. ERCU runs a 14-race schedule between April and October, including 10 events in the Puget Sound region, four in the Portland-Vancouve r area, and one in Centralia.

More information about the club, World Championship sponsorship opportunities, and the event can be found online at www.e-rcu.org, or by calling Holmberg at 360-521-1590.

– ERCU –